The Misfortune to Meet
by TheWheelWeaves
Summary: A series of pieces in which the characters of This Rose is Extra meet one another for the first time. Set at various points in the course of the story, each one will explain the timeline.
1. Rose and Mrs Hudson Meet

**As promised, new stories, hot and fresh right when I said they would be here.**

**I'm going to stop trying to give a date for when ****_Stars Will Fall_**** (the Reichenbach Fall re-write) will be finished, but it is moving at a good clip just now, so I can only hope that it will be soon. It will begin posting as soon as it is finished, I will promise that.**

**I will try to make clear before each of these pieces where they fall in the current This Rose is Extra canon. For instance, this piece falls after the end of The Adventure of the Cardiff Bees and before Mobile Communication Technology.**

**Please enjoy, and if you feel so inclined, I always love reviews!**

**A/N Edit: As ever, I must thank my husband for making sure that my work isn't embarrassingly riddled with errors and WhoLockGal who is an absolute inspiration every time I'm bashing my head against the wall trying to figure out why these characters just won't do what I tell them to do.**

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Rose arrived at 221B, brushed her fingertips over the numberplate (as she had always and would always do when she arrived) and knocked. It had been a week since she'd returned from Cardiff and she'd heard nothing from Sherlock. Rose felt awkward texting him first (though she couldn't say why), and even more uncomfortable calling him. She decided that a "random" visit (_just in the neighborhood and thought to stop by_) to see if he wanted to go to lunch might work better. No awkward silences. No uncomfortable waiting for a response to a text.

She chose not to examine exactly _why_ she would be waiting for his text like the lovestruck teenager she certainly wasn't.

She waited for an answer. This was better. This was more personal. This was an opportunity to tell him off for not calling her when he said he would.

At least she wasn't here to arrest him this time.

The door was opened by Sherlock's landlady. Rose's mind did a quick search and found the name Mrs. Hudson (no Christian name) from her last visit. Both John and Sherlock had called her that.

"Hello, Mrs. Hudson, is Sherlock in?"

The older woman stood in absolute shock, looking at Rose as though she were a creature from Raxacoricofallapatorius.

"Are you all right?" Rose asked, worried for the poor woman's heart. "I came to speak to Sherlock, but... are you okay though? Do you need something?" The woman's unblinking, hypnotized stare was beginning to unnerve Rose, who had been the subject of tabloid interest for five years.

"Is Sherlock in trouble again? Oh that foolish man, no wonder he left in such a hurry this morning," the landlady finally said. The words came out in a rush of irritation, affection, and maternalism.

"No, he's not in trouble. This is... more of a social visit, actually. I was going to ask him to come to lunch with me," Rose clarified. "But if he's not here, that's fine. I'll just come by at another time." Rose moved to go.

"No, wait!" Mrs. Hudson cried, grabbing Rose's wrist. "Sherlock keeps very strange hours. He could be back in a few minutes, or he could be gone several hours, but... well..." She trailed off, looking embarrassed.

"What's wrong?"

"Well... my kettle just boiled, and I was going to have some tea... alone, and I always make tea for three, in case the boys are in," Mrs. Hudson said, sounding sad.

"Are you inviting me to come in and have tea with you, Mrs. Hudson?" Rose asked, a bit lost.

The older woman brightened suddenly, like an electric bulb. "Oh yes, if you haven't anything else to do."

Rose couldn't bring herself to dim the brightness that had kindled in the woman's face. "Yes, all right, that sounds lovely."

Mrs. Hudson led Rose through to her rooms. Rose could see that these had been, when the building was built, the housekeeper's quarters. They had been added to- a small kitchen was carved out of the sitting room- but they remained largely as they had been: small, cramped, and- though this had little to do with how they were built- decorated in a claustrophobically busy floral pattern across nearly everything.

"What a lovely flat," Rose said, somewhat untruthfully.

"Oh, thank you, dear. That is sweet of you to say." Mrs. Hudson was gushing just a bit. "Please, have a seat." She indicated her sofa- floral-patterned- and bustled off into the kitchen to manage the tea tray.

Rose sat, gingerly, on the pansy-patterned piece of furniture. Despite its rather unnerving effect on the eye, the sofa was, in fact, quite comfortable. Rose sat back and listened to her hostess in the kitchen.

Mrs. Hudson (and Rose was going to have to get a more comfortable name for the woman now that she was relaxing in her sitting room) was puttering about the small space in an efficient way. Rose looked about and could see little evidence of male habitation. It wasn't just the floral decorations. The place was tidy, the television remote sat beside a chair that was clearly the most-used piece of furniture and a discreet scattering of newspapers (mostly red-tops) was laid on the table before the sofa.

Mrs. Hudson returned with a tea tray filled with a rather jarring tea set patterned in butterflies. She set it on the table in front of Rose and filled the cups with the warm brew. "Do you take cream?" she asked, and at Rose's nod she applied it to the tea. "Sugar?"

"No thank you, Mrs. Hudson," Rose answered, and accepted the teacup from the older woman who took a seat in an armchair that Rose had noticed before and was clearly her preferred seat in the room.

"Quite the opposite of Sherlock then," Mrs. Hudson observed. "He likes his tea and his coffee sweet, he does. Well, when he doesn't want lemon in his tea. Think he does that when he's feeling frustrated, honestly. He only wants lemon when he's been off a case for awhile and he's gotten twitchy."

Rose nodded absently, but she was not interested in talking about Sherlock. The woman before her was more interesting than the detective at the moment, anyway.

"Mrs. Hudson..." Rose trailed off for a moment, and then resumed. "What is your name, actually? I can't call you Mrs. Hudson, not over tea."

"Martha Louise, dear," Mrs. Hudson said, looking pleased. "You can call me either Martha or Louise, or both, but I do like the name Martha, myself."

"I've a very dear friend named Martha, so that will be fine. I'll have two with the same name now," Rose said with a warm smile.

Mrs. Hudson (Martha, Rose amended) very nearly blushed.

"Where is Mr. Hudson?" Rose asked, and then added, in a bit of a rush, "there's no need to tell me if it's private."

"No, of course not," Mrs. Hudson cried. "It's not private, just foolish. Frank was not a nice man, not really. Ran drugs, you know. We lived in Miami at the time, and he was a bit of a naughty boy. Not really very good at what he did, so I was dancing to make ends meet. Sherlock testified against Frank after he shot a man and ensured that he was given the chair. I moved back to England. It was nice to start being a landlady. Much easier than the dancing."

Rose nodded, wisely. "I had someone like that once. His name was Jimmy Stone. He was a musician, 'cept that he never had a show, never made any money. I worked two jobs, and we hardly ever made rent. And then he'd have the balls to tell me that I was the useless one. First time he slapped me around I was out the door though. I guess I can be proud of that, if nothing else." Rose's voice had slipped into uncertainty. The uncertainty that she hadn't had since she was 19. Since before a mad man in a blue box had seen her potential. Since before she had become the companion of the last Time Lord. Since before she had been handed the universe on a platter. It was the uncertainty of an Earth-bound, 19-year-old girl, in love with a boy, and hoping that he loved her back against all odds.

Martha Louise recognized the longing in the woman before her. She recognized the pain of a good woman brought to a low place by a thoughtless man. She even recognized the woman who had been saved, but still dreamed that she was lost. Mrs. Hudson saw the woman that Rose Tyler kept under close wraps inside herself. The woman who had been hit. The woman who had been belittled. The woman who had been sexualized. She saw a woman who had been used for what her body could provide to a man- not for what a man could provide to her.

"I'd never heard about that," Martha said, keeping her voice gentle and motherly rather than accusing.

Despite her careful modulation of tone, Rose looked at her with frightened eyes. "Yeah," she said in a deliberately casual voice. "Mum and Dad managed to keep it out of the papers. They paid some people off." Rose took a long draught from her teacup, nearly emptying it. "Look," she said, "I really ought to go now. When Sherlock comes back, would you mind telling him that he ought to text me?"

"You needn't go, Rose," Mrs. Hudson said quickly. "I didn't mean to pry. I suppose I've picked up a few bad habits from Sherlock. We don't have to talk about that. I have some cakes, if you'd like? They're John's favorite, so I try to make them once a week or so.

Rose was nervous. She liked this woman and her motherly nature, but she did fear giving away too much- most people that she spent time with either knew her story or had no interest in the tabloid tales about her. This woman was precisely the opposite. She was not brilliant like Sherlock, but she was canny and clever and would pick up on Rose's mistakes- particularly since she'd never been a terribly gifted liar when it came to benign issues. She could lie to save the Earth, or to save a person, but to keep herself out of the media spotlight, she'd never gotten the knack. Her preferred method was vague half-truths that were difficult, if not impossible, in the face of maternal concern.

She considered leaving then. Just bolting. She knew, however, that she was not going to be able (or willing) to stay away from Sherlock for long, and this woman would always be there. She just couldn't be so rude.

Mrs. Hudson came bustling back into the room with the cakes on a plate. She started talking as soon as she was in sight. "Anyway, I was telling you about my Frank, wasn't I?" She set the tray of cakes on the table and sat in her chair again. "He fancied himself a gangster, like in _The Godfather_, you know? Well, like I say, he wasn't nearly that suave. Do have a cake, dear."

Rose reached forward and took one. It was quite delicious, and she said so.

"Thank you ever so. Like I told you, John loves them. I could give you the recipe if you like. Do you bake?"

"No, not much. Bit of a menace in the kitchen, me," Rose admitted. "But tell me more about Frank or… did you mention exotic dancing?"

"Well, Frank liked to think himself a regular Michael Corleone, but he wasn't so clever as all that. Spent time in and out of jail, he did, and I had to make ends meet, you see? There was this nightclub called Ruby's Palace, just down from our little flat. I thought I'd be serving drinks when I applied there, but they specialized in… well… dancers. I had a bit of ballet experience from when I was a girl, but I'd never done anything like they were talking about. But they liked my look so they hired me on. Gave me a new name: Lovey Peters."

Rose choked into her tea.

"Are you all right, dear?"

"You're Lovey Peters? But… I've heard of you! No, more than that, I've seen you," Rose said, staring at the woman before her. "There are videos on youtube. You wore a big hat like at a traditional tea party, and white gloves and a long see-through skirt and roses over your…" Rose gestured toward her chest.

"Yes, that was me!" Mrs. Hudson seemed quite pleased that Rose knew who she was. "They liked to play up the English thing. But goodness, youtube? That was long before youtube, dear."

"Right, of course, but someone's probably found the old videos and digitized them," Rose explained. "But you were a great dancer!"

"Well, I did learn. Mostly on the job, of course. The other girls taught me. Did it for years." Martha sat back and though about it, enjoying the nostalgic memories. "I could teach you if you'd like," she suggested suddenly. "It keeps you fit, dancing like that, but I don't suggest doing it in the long term. Threw out my hip, you know. It's never been the same since."

Rose looked at the woman before her. This woman who had been lonely, then asked her to tea. This woman who had seen her fear and soothed it. Really, Sherlock's landlady was completely brilliant.

"I'd love you to teach me to dance," Rose said with a grin.

~?~?~?~?~

Sherlock arrived home and observed that there was music and voices coming from Mrs. Hudson's rooms. He identified his landlady's voice immediately and there was a second woman's voice that he could not quite place (though a whisper in his head made him think he should be able to). As he was listening, he caught a few words.

"Now you want to gyrate your hips like so, dear." It was Mrs. Hudson speaking. "You'll need to use your abdominal muscles to do it. It's a wonderful move in bed as well, always made Frank go wild, anyway."

Sherlock shook his head. He had no interest in hearing this conversation, but he was arrested by the next sound that caught him: laughter. Not Mrs. Hudson's hooting cackle, but a bubbling tinkle, like aural champagne. A sound he'd heard before and would probably never forget.

Rose Tyler was in his landlady's flat, listening to her talking about sex and laughing.

Sherlock burst in the door to find both Rose and Mrs. Hudson doing some kind of rolling motion with their hips in unison. The sight of Rose dancing like that sent Sherlock's thoughts skittering away to vivid fantasy, but they were quickly returned by the image of Mrs. Hudson doing the same.

"Oh, hello Sherlock, dear," his landlady trilled, stopping the motion of her hips. Rose continued, however, and Sherlock found his focus waning again. "Rose came to see you, and I invited her in for tea. I was just showing her some dance steps from when I was a bit younger. We've also decided on a new name for her, Dame Tangerine Kiss." Both women laughed at this.

Sherlock knew about Mrs. Hudson's past in the burlesque, but he'd never thought to see proof dancing in her living room in the form of the woman who had haunted his thoughts for weeks now.

"I…" Sherlock swallowed. "See."

"Hello, Sherlock," Rose said with a grin that had her tongue peeking out from behind her teeth. "You know you should have called me ages ago, yeah?"

"I… um…" Why would she not stand still? He simply could not gather his thoughts with her hips… undulating like that. "We could talk now, if you like. Upstairs?"

"Sorry, I'm having tea with Martha just now. She's about to show me another move that goes with this one. Gets the shoulders involved and puts everything on display, you know?" She gestured toward her chest with these words.

Sherlock was nearly positive that she was trying to kill him. Deciding that discretion truly was the better part of valor, he fled the flat.

Feminine laughter followed him up the stairs.


	2. Rose and Mycroft Meet

**This story falls very shortly before The Detective Dances and is referenced in that story. If you haven't read it... well, I suggest it. It's a good one.**

**As ever, I hope you enjoy!**

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The woman with whom Mycroft's foolish brother had been keeping time stepped into the room in which he was being held. His umbrella, mobile and wallet had been removed from his person and he had been patted down before being brought into this room. As though he would have something as crude as a firearm on his person. The idea was ludicrous.

He had met this woman before at the few social events that he was expected to attend by virtue of his position. He had found her vapid, boring, and foolish. He had, apparently, not been looking carefully because the girl before him now bore very little resemblance to the person he had seen before.

He made an examination of the young woman who stood in the doorway, his grey eyes traveling from the top of her head (dark roots needing to be touched up to match the blonde of the rest of her hair) to her shoes (lightweight, high-durability boots that had been owned for upward of a year with wear that indicated a great deal of walking, running, hiking and martial arts). He noted that her clothing was of good quality but not new indicating that it had been purchased for use rather than fashion. He noted that the creases in her shirt indicated that she had been wearing a holster for a weapon until around ten minutes prior. He noted that, though her hair was treated with peroxide, it was soft and healthy indicating that her stylist was a master colourist, so the colour of her eyebrows not matching her hair must be a conscious choice. He noted that her earrings were simple posts that would catch on nothing but were platinum and diamond rather than sterling and cubic zirconium. He noted that she wore no rings on either hand. He noted that her fingernails showed evidence of being bitten and were un-manicured. He noted that her teeth were white but showed no signs of orthodontic work. He noted that she wore a silver chain with an unknown pendant that was covered by her shirt. He noted that she was smiling at him, her eyes sparkling as though with internal light.

He failed to note that her smile was lovely, her eyes held no fear, her stance was confident and that she was beautiful. That was not his way.

He did notice the sparkle in her eyes and the twitch of her lips that said that she found something amusing. Mycroft Holmes was not a man who well-enjoyed being laughed at.

"You find something amusing, Ms. Tyler?"

"Most things, to one degree or another, yes." She crossed the room and sat across from him at the table, crossing her legs primly. "So, Mycroft Holmes, I'd thought to wait to be invited to Sunday tea to meet you, but as the invitation was not forthcoming, I thought I'd invite you to my place instead."

Mycroft frowned at her. He knew where he was- Torchwood. He knew what Torchwood was- research and development of experimental technology with a 'service force' that handled issues outside of the purview of the main law enforcement agencies in the country. He knew that Rose Tyler worked for Torchwood- he could get employee records from anyone in the organization.

He did not understand the possessive nature of her claim, however. He had not known that Torchwood had secrets from him until he had begun looking for information on one Rose Tyler, and now he had more questions than answers.

That was not the way it went for Mycroft Holmes. When he asked questions, he received answers. Never more questions.

"Your place? Torchwood?" He made certain the disbelief in his tone was insultingly evident, hoping that she would defend herself. She grinned at him instead.

"Yeah, my place. I'll be director of Torchwood one day."

Mycroft snorted in disbelief. "You've only worked here for five years, and you started from the bottom. You may have risen quickly, but you can hardly know…"

She grinned and interrupted, "actually I can know. And it may only have been five years, but what you don't know about me is that I'm quite brilliant."

Mycroft snorted again, and Rose laughed.

"You're so like him, you know?"

He frowned again. "I presume that you mean my gullible brother."

"Oh yeah. And he's not gullible."

"He trusts you."

"That he does. Me and John Watson."

"Dr. Watson has proven himself a trustworthy companion."

"And I have not?"

"I have no evidence of the fact."

"Sherlock and John had a beginning to their relationship as well. Did you object this strongly to the doctor then?"

"Of course not."

"Because?" She said it as though she knew the answer.

"I offered him a bribe to keep tabs on my brother. He refused."

"I was given no such opportunity to prove my loyalty. Why was that?"

"I knew you would fail," he answered, haughtily.

"Oh yeah? How do you know that?"

"I know women like you." His eyes narrowed at her as he continued. "You are not the first woman in my brother's life, Rose Tyler."

She grinned. "He's thirty-three years old, Mr. Holmes. I can't help but assume that there have been women in his life. Or men were that where his predilections lay… I don't believe it is, however."

"There was a girl at university with whom Sherlock dallied. She was of no interest, however, merely a means to an end."

"Relationships at 17 are like that, aren't they?" she asked with another smile. She was indicating her knowledge of Sherlock's past- that she knew he had gone to University young.

"I wouldn't know. However, more recently there was a woman. The Woman, Sherlock called her. In his eyes she eclipses and predominates the whole of her sex. Her name was Irene Adler, she was a famous madam here in the city, and she seduced my brother into giving her state secrets. He was a sweating teenage boy in her presence. She's dead now, else he would never look twice at you."

"A beautiful courtesan clever enough to get into his head and see him for the lonely little boy he is," Rose murmured. "Been there and lived to tell the tale, Mr. Holmes, what else have you got?"

"Did you know that he is a junkie? Perhaps he is merely using you or your money to get his next fix?"

"Somehow I think not, not least because he's never asked me for money, stolen anything from me, or presented any overt symptoms of active drug use. Occasionally he shows the symptoms of an ex-user, but usually when he is compromised in some way." Rose was careful not to let her surprise show. She had once hypothesized that Sherlock could be seduced by drugs, but she had never had that confirmed until now. It was not for Mycroft to know that Sherlock had not told her that, however.

"Who are you, Rose Tyler?"

Rose smiled a wolf's smile. "He asked me the same question, you know, first day we met. Thing is that he now knows the answer to that. He knows what's in those files about me that you can't touch."

"How?"

"He proved himself trustworthy, Mr. Holmes. And he has trusted me. Let me ask you this: for what could I possibly need your brother? Money? Hardly. My parents are among the wealthiest people in Europe and I am their heir. Government secrets? Mr. Holmes, I _am_ a government secret. My security clearance is higher than yours. What have I done besides become your brother's friend?"

"You kidnapped me…" Mycroft began.

"No, I arrested you," she interrupted. "There is a difference."

"For what have I been arrested?"

"Classified files? Illegal means to access them? Ringing any bells?" She raised an eyebrow condescendingly at him.

Mycroft at least had the decency to blush.

"Yeah, thought that might inspire a memory or two. Look, trying to attack my files is illegal. We tried to put you off with the virus, but apparently that didn't work. Don't do it again or we'll put you in a cell, not an interrogation room."

"Tell me who you are and what you want from my brother, and I need not attempt to access your files."

Rose gave him a long look. "I'm Rose Tyler, and I'm your brother's girlfriend. That's all you need know. He trusts me, and I think he's happy with me. That should be enough for you."

"Why does he trust you? There is no logical reason."

At that, Rose smiled again. Not a cheeky grin intended to tease, nor a baring of teeth intended to intimidate, this was a ray of sunshine falling across a cool room, bringing warmth and light with it. Even Mycroft felt the effect, though he ignored it.

"You're more intelligent than Sherlock. Faster observations. Greater memory capacity. Higher IQ, yeah?" She waited for a beat, and seemed to see the truth in his face. "Thought so. You can tell- the way he talks about you. But do you know why Sherlock is a better detective than you would ever be? Instinct. Heart." Rose acknowledged Mycroft's snort. "Yeah, thought you might react that way. Let me guess- that sort of thing is a perversion to perfect logic? Yeah, he's said that too. Still does sometimes. But the thing is that he has to trust his intuition when it comes to suspects, so he has developed a sense of it much better than you have. He trusts me instinctively because I am trustworthy. You mistrust me because you mistrust everyone." She gave him another long look. "I think that sounds very lonely. I'm sorry."

"I am not lonely." Mycroft was not sure why he felt the need to defend himself from this woman, but her analysis and her golden eyes made him feel uncomfortable.

"As you like. Now, you're free to go, but if you try to access my files again, you'll be arrested again, and we won't be as nice the second time. If you want to get to know me, ask me and Sherlock around to tea sometime."

"Sherlock is not speaking to me," Mycroft said as he rose from the table. "That is why I went looking in your files, Ms. Tyler."

"Hmm, wonder why he wouldn't tell you about me."

"Perhaps he is ashamed."

"Of me or you?"

"Well, Ms. Tyler, that is the question, isn't it?" With that, Mycroft left the room.


	3. Rose and Molly meet

**Okay, so this one has been written for nearly forever. The first time I tried to write the piece that is now ****_Stars Will Fall_**** (a complete failure, much of which had to be scrapped), this was a flashback scene. I liked it because it showed some not-so-nice sides of Rose, and got Molly into my stories, so I held onto it.**

**This is set a few weeks after The Detective Dances.**

**Please read and enjoy. Reviews don't necessarily make me write faster, but they do make me smile!**

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John was in the country checking Harry into yet another alcohol rehab facility. Rose had gotten a nasty scratch off a visiting Foamasi and had been told not to darken Torchwood's doorway for at least two days, so she was with Sherlock. She had talked him out of the flat, despite the fact that he would have preferred to stay in and sulk over the lack of a case.

"You'll feel better for having some food and sunshine," she told him, chivvying him into his coat.

"It's cloudy," he answered, petulantly.

Rose chose not to respond to him, just held the other sleeve of his coat and guided it onto his arm. She stood in front of him and brushed the lapels and collar into place, taking the opportunity to brush his curly hair out of his face.

"You could use a haircut," she said, knowing he wouldn't bother until it got so long that it got in the way of his microscope.

Sherlock harrumphed and lifted the collar that she had just smoothed down. He descended the stairs and was out of the flat before she had her jacket on, forcing her to jog to catch him up. He had shoved his hands into the pockets of his coat, so she took his elbow rather than his hand. He was actively being difficult, trying to put her off of this idea and allow him to go back home to his sulking, but she refused to let up.

She began a cheerful round of questioning about the latest cadaver piece to appear in his refrigerator- a heart- and what he had been doing with it. Sherlock tried to keep his answers terse and uninformative but, as she often did, she coaxed him into giving her more. Ten minutes into their walk, he was explaining in depth the results from his experiments with electrical pulses, gesturing with one hand, having taken the other out of his pocket to lace the fingers with hers. He even gave his phone his trademark scowl when it signaled, interrupting his lecture.

"What do you need, Lestrade?" Sherlock bit off into the phone.

Rose hit him in the arm for his rudeness.

"What's really wrong? You wouldn't call me in for death by gunshot wound." Sherlock waited a few more minutes. "Who is with you? I thought Anderson said he'd never work with me again. Fine, we'll meet you there shortly." He hung up and looked at Rose. "I need to go to the morgue and look at something for Lestrade. Would you… like to come with me?" He knew that she wasn't squeamish, but it was a morgue, and she was a woman. She might prefer to go home.

However, she met his question with a grin, looped her arm through his and said, "you always take me the nicest places, Sherlock."

He looked at that charming grin with her tongue tucked between her teeth and Sherlock forgot everything for a moment. He forgot the dead man lying in the morgue waiting for him, Lestrade's request and Anderson's inevitable behavior.

"Sherlock?" Rose asked, concern creasing her brow.

"Mmm?"

"Are we walking to Bart's, or taking a cab? I thought time might be of the essence. I suppose the poor man won't be any more dead, but you never know what could happen to evidence, particularly if there are already people there prodding at him."

Sherlock allowed a smile of pure pleasure to light his face. She was incredible.

"Yes," he said, "we'll take a cab. Wouldn't want Anderson to do anything too excessively stupid when I'm not there to stop him."

Upon arriving at St. Bartholomew's Hospital, Sherlock led Rose to the basement. She'd been to Bart's before, both in this universe and her old one, but never to the morgue. She'd been to the morgues at Torchwood, however, and this was much like those.

Sherlock burst into the autopsy room with a cry of "don't touch anything, Anderson. You'll ruin it."

The dark-haired, weasely-looking man who had been bent over the body moments before looked up to sneer at Sherlock.

"Oh, if it isn't everyone's favorite psychopath," he said in a nasal voice that set Rose's teeth on edge.

"Charming," Rose said, then looked at Sherlock and continued, "both of you. Don't be rude."

"I wasn't…" Sherlock began, but Rose cut him off.

"You had no idea what he was doing before you came in here. You may be a genius, but you are not clairvoyant and you can't see through walls. Now, Don't. Be. Rude." She punctuated each word with a poke to his chest. She then turned to the smaller man. "As for you, until you can show me your degree in Psychological Analysis, I sincerely doubt that you have the credentials to label anyone a psychopath, so please keep your uninformed opinions to yourself." She then turned to the last man in the room, a handsome older man who was smiling at these exchanges. "Good to see you again, Greg," she said with a smile.

"And you," he said, grinning and accepting her kiss on the cheek with only a slight blush.

"You could keep them playing nice yourself, you know," she whispered into his ear.

"You're the only one who can keep Sherlock on a leash and you know it," he whispered back.

Rose giggled. She glanced over at the other two men who were glaring at each other over top of the body, but not actively fighting anymore. Then she turned to the last person in the room, a small brown-haired woman who was looking at Rose as though she were an alien.

Rose smiled and extended a hand to the woman. "Rose Tyler, nice to meet you."

"Yeah," the girl said, shaking Rose's hand, "I know."

"Right, 'course you do," Rose said with a grin. "I'm actually terrible at being famous. It's kind of the opposite of the person who's like 'do you know who I am?' and is then surprised when you say 'uh, no.' I'm like 'do you know who I am?' and people say 'well, yeah' and I say 'you do? Why?' And I talk too much," Rose said, noticing that the other girl was giving her an odd look. "You were going to tell me your name, and I'm babbling like an idiot. Sorry 'bout that."

"I'm Molly," the girl said with a glance at Sherlock who wasn't paying any attention to her. "Molly Hooper."

"Molly!" Rose cried in delight. "I've heard loads about you."

"Really?" The girl looked inordinately pleased and glanced at Sherlock again, hope and affection radiating out of her face.

Rose suddenly understood. She had heard a lot about Molly, but from John, not Sherlock. John had always spoken of the girl with affection, but a bit of pity as well. Rose could see it now- unrequited love for the handsome detective. Rose wasn't sure how to talk to the other girl- she didn't want to upset her, but neither did she want to deny her relationship with Sherlock.

"Rose, come look at this," Sherlock called sharply from across the room.

"One: Rose _please_ look at this," she said in an annoyed voice. "Two: I'm not coming to examine your cadaver for you. I don't have your fascination for corpses; I've seen plenty for myself, thanks."

"You'll want to see this."

"You're almost undoubtedly wrong." Rose heard Molly gasp at the shocking irreverence with which she spoke to the detective.

"Rose," he said, simply, but there was both a command and a plea in the word. One she couldn't ignore.

She walked over and saw what he was pointing at. She frowned, and bent closer to the thing that had once been a person laying on the table. Couldn't be. She turned to Sherlock and reached into an inner pocket of his coat to remove his magnifying lens. She thought she heard Molly make a slight noise at the intimacy of the move, but there were more important things than the lovestruck girl at this moment.

She used the lens to examine what had been deemed a gunshot wound. It wasn't. No powder burns, and instead of a clean hole, there were jagged marks made around it. Like it had been bitten through him, not shot.

"Bollocks," Rose muttered. "It's my day off, damn it." She sighed, then turned to the room at large. "All right then, Greg and..." she trailed off, looking at Anderson, "actually, I don't know your name except Anderson, and knowing Sherlock, even that could be wrong. I'm on first-name terms with everyone else here, so how about it, what's your name?"

"Phillip Anderson," the officer said.

"Pleasure, I'm sure, Phillip," Rose said, then returned to the task at hand. "So, Greg and Phillip are off the case. Molly too, probably, but everyone'll have to stick around until my team gets here and can debrief you." She looked around at the questioning looks on all faces but Sherlock's, and waylaid them. "Don't ask because I won't tell you. You'll learn as much as you need to know when my team gets here, but for now, stay here while I go make a call. Don't touch anything, all right?" She glanced around, making sure that she got a nod from everyone (Sherlock included) before she went to the door.

Molly stopped her. "I've an office if you'd like to use that."

Rose nodded. "Perfect." She turned to Phillip and Sherlock. "Sherlock, you make sure that Phillip doesn't touch anything. Phillip, you make sure that Sherlock doesn't touch anything." She then turned to Lestrade. "Greg, you make sure they don't kill each other. Everyone clear? Good." With that she left the men.

As Rose and Molly made their way to the office, Molly watched the blonde woman. "You know quite a lot about Sherlock," she said. It was a statement and a question at once.

"I do," Rose said, not exactly answering the question, but not denying it either. "As much as anyone, probably, save his mother and John."

"You know John?"

"Of course, everyone knows John."

Molly smiled. "Yes, I suppose they do." She hesitated, and Rose was sure that she would continue pressing for more information. She was not disappointed. "The papers say that you and Sherlock... but Sherlock doesn't... Because that means... But he doesn't... Does he?"

Rose remained silent both because Molly had failed to actually finish a sentence, and because she did not want to encourage this conversation, awkward as it was.

Molly continued, however. "It's just that I always thought... Well... He was here all the time... And I was here... It seemed obvious... But then I thought maybe he didn't... Or maybe... But then at Christmas... I thought there was something... Maybe I was wrong."

"What happened at Christmas?" Rose asked, against her better judgment. She heard, in her mind, the voice of her past: _I thought you and I were... guess I was wrong._

"John threw a Christmas party at their place, and all of their friends came. I came and... well... I brought a gift for Sherlock. But he said some... terrible things. But he saw that he'd hurt me and he kissed me."

"Sherlock kissed you?" Rose asked, in slight shock. Sherlock had only kissed her once, months back. But he had kissed this girl.

Rose had believed that the jealousy that she had learned at the Doctor's hand had left as she had grown. She came to find, on that day, however, that she had simply not had anyone to feel jealous over. She suddenly questioned her entire relationship with Sherlock, and what she could possibly mean to him.

Rose looked at Molly as they walked down the hall. She thought she was prettier than the other girl, but it was hard to tell with one of them in jeans and leather jacket, and the other in a lab coat. They were around the same age, but Molly had an innocence of spirit that Rose had not had since the day on the beach that had killed the child that she was. Molly was cloistered in her morgue and, despite the fact that she dealt with death every day, she had not seen it- not really.

Rose sighed. This was not a competition. She was not 19 any longer, and she could not doubt her place in Sherlock's life until he gave her reason to. And if he did, it was not this young woman's fault. Rose pushed her jealousy and insecurity aside when they reached the small office that had Molly's name on the door.

"You can stay, if you want," Rose offered, hoping that she would go.

Molly smiled, however, and sat on the edge of her desk, apparently waiting for Rose.

Rose pulled out her phone and hit the first number on speed-dial.

"Mick? We've an issue. I need you and Owen at the St. Bart's morgue as soon as you're able. Yes, I know I'm supposed to be off-duty, I came here with Sherlock, this is his business, not mine. Well, it's mine now. I can't discuss it here, you and Owen'll have to come see it for yourself. I need Jake and either Tosh or Ianto as well though. Whoever's free. No, you and Owen come immediately. Have Jake and his partner come after. Gwen'll do in a pinch, yeah, but Tosh and Yan have more experience. Go ahead and have them take a second car. Have them pick up coffee on the way, actually, that'll probably help. Yeah, go ahead and have him call me, I'll see what everyone drinks. Yeah. Exactly. Good man. All right, thanks sweetheart. See you in a bit. And Mick? Come armed. I hope not, but do it anyway. Thanks." With that perplexing conversation over, Rose ended her call and looked at the brown-haired woman who had been listening.

"You're really not anything at all like the tabloids make you out to be."

"Thanks," Rose said, not wanting to get into it with this woman. Her relationship with the media was peculiar to say the least.

"So they must have most things wrong about you," Molly continued, apparently not picking up on Rose's desire not to discuss it.

Rose sighed. She hadn't wanted to do this to the other woman, but it seemed she had no choice. She couldn't wait for circumstance to make the truth obvious to her. "Sherlock and I are... well, you're right that he doesn't date, but we are in a relationship. We're together. I'm sorry."

Molly looked at her for a moment in complete disbelief. "No, you can't be," she said. "Sherlock doesn't..."

Rose attempted to keep her voice from taking on the cold, dismissive quality that it did when she was annoyed. She felt bad for the other girl, but all she seemed able to do was claim that Sherlock _didn't_. "He does, actually, sometimes. Maybe just with me, I'm not really sure."

Molly's eyes filled with tears. A voice in Rose's head with a biting northern accent said "_domestics_" in that dismissive and cold way he had. She had an alien threat to deal with, including Retconning at least two people out of remembering it which meant hacking into police files and changing records. Her team would be here shortly, and this woman was... _blogging_.

"But why you?" Molly said in a broken voice. "I was always here, I was always waiting. If he was going to... why wouldn't he come to me?"

Rose closed her eyes, willing herself to be kind. Willing herself to be patient. Willing herself not to sound like the Doctor or worse (in this situation anyway) Sherlock.

"Because you were here, just like you always are," Rose began and winced internally, knowing that she was being rude. "Look, Sherlock's not an ordinary bloke that's going to take you to the cinema or the coffee shop and ask you about your day. That's just not who he is. The only person that Sherlock will align himself with is someone who will keep up with him- not mentally, obviously, but they can't be intimidated by his intelligence either- but what he really needs is someone who'll be at his side when things get weird. Someone who'll put up with the cadaver pieces in the refrigerator and the lack of tact and the occasional psychopath who wants him dead and the black depressions and the odd hours and the interminable violin music. And maybe you could have handled all of that. But the real reason that it's me and not you, Molly, is that I asked."

"I asked him out!" Molly cried, offended. "I asked him to coffee..."

"And what did he say?" Rose asked, guessing the answer.

"He... asked me to bring him some coffee. I think he misunderstood." Molly allowed the sentence to trail off into nothing.

"And did you correct him?"

"Well... no."

"Why not?"

"Because... he'd have said 'no.'" Molly sounded miserable.

"So you _didn't_ ask him out," Rose said, simply. "You avoided the rejection that is inherent in the process and let everything remain undefined. I get that. Done a lot of it in the past, but let me tell you something, Molly- just a piece of advice, and you can take it or not, it's entirely your choice- if you let your relationships sit undefined and hope that they'll just naturally turn into what you want them to be, you'll be hurt every time because the bloke isn't gonna see it the way you do. You'll be his mate and he'll never think that he's done something wrong when he walks away to something or someone better. So my advice is this: say what you want. Not just with blokes, but with anyone. Tell people what you need from them." Rose's phone rang, and she saw Jake's name and picture appear on the caller ID. "I've got to take this. Do you want something from the coffee shop?"

"Skim milk latte." Molly's voice was soft and vague, and she looked completely stunned.

Rose nodded and walked out of the office, putting the phone to her ear to talk to Jake and get coffee orders. The Retcon would be slipped into the drinks that she indicated. As she was finishing her call with Jake, Molly made it back to the morgue and Mickey and Owen arrived.

Rose pulled Mickey and Owen to the corpse and showed them what Sherlock had found. They looked at the tooth-marks around the edge of the 'bullet wound' and Rose watched both Mickey's and Owen's eyes widen.

"Venchilion," Mickey breathed.

"Exactly," Rose responded, keeping her voice low. "I've got Jake bringing coffee for everyone, so we can get it as soon as Owen is ready. I need to do something first. Are you two all right?"

"Of course," Owen said dismissively, continuing to examine the body.

"You do what you have to do, boss," Mickey answered, turning to keep an eye on the other people in the room so they wouldn't get too curious about what Owen was doing.

Rose sidled up to Sherlock. "Can I talk to you out in the hallway for a mo'?" she asked.

Sherlock appeared to be more interested in watching what Owen was up to, but he nodded and followed her out into the quiet passage. "What's going on?" he asked, once they were not in danger of being overheard.

"That's no gunshot wound, of course, but you figured that one out for yourself, clever boy that you are," she began, smiling at him. Sherlock did not smile back, so she returned to seriousness. "It's called a Venchilion- looks a lot like an earthworm that's been made of pewter. It takes a bite, tunnels into the body, and sets itself up in the heart to procreate. They reproduce asexually, you see. So, right now, there's probably a hive of grey nightcrawlers in that man's heart. We need to get them out and deal with them, and we haven't really got time to take the body to Torchwood to do it, so there are going to be witnesses. You've been vetted- you're welcome- but Anderson, Lestrade and Hooper haven't. Jake is on his way with a drug called Retcon that will remove their memories of the last 24 hours. We'll be able to replace them with a plausible story, but they'll never remember this day very clearly.

"That doesn't really matter though, because what I came to ask you is this: how trustworthy is Molly Hooper?"

"What?" Sherlock looked baffled at this apparent non sequitur.

"I have to remove the memories from Lestrade and Anderson, they're the police, but Molly is different. I don't _have_ to drug her. You know her best of anyone here, so I need to know: is Molly Hooper trustworthy? If we open up that cadaver's heart and pull out a pound of alien worms, is she going to panic? Is she going to go to the police, the papers, or the government with what she sees? I need to know if you trust her, Sherlock. You don't trust easily, so if you do, I will."

Sherlock frowned at Rose. She had once threatened to remove every memory that he had of her and every piece of investigative knowledge that he had, but he had at least half thought she was joking. Apparently not.

"I trust Molly. She can handle it," he said without hesitation.

Rose nodded and turned from Sherlock without another word. As much as she hated to admit it, even to herself, she had hoped that he would say that Molly couldn't be depended on. She hoped that he would say that she was silly, flighty, and cowardly. He did not, however, and Rose felt a twinge of jealousy that she was not the only woman that Sherlock held in esteem. She knew it was foolish, childish and wrong and she clamped it down with ruthless logic, but it did not stop her knowing it was there.

Rose pulled out her phone and shot a text to Jake telling him not to spike the skim milk latte with the drug. Then she returned to the morgue as Owen removed a few tools that made Molly's eyes widen.

"Okay," Rose said in an overly bright tone. "Owen's about to make things around here just a bit disgusting, so if you don't want to see it, now's the time to leave. You can't leave the building, but you don't have to watch this."

"I'm staying," Lestrade said in what Rose identified as his 'Detective Inspector' voice. He was on the case and would not leave until it was solved- horrible as that solving might prove to be.

"Who are you?" the pugnacious Anderson asked, giving her a narrow look.

"Brigadier Rose Tyler of the Torchwood Institute," Rose said, giving no further detail. The surprise on all three faces was only too familiar to her. Rose wondered if it was her youth, her sex, or her hair color that was the predominate cause of that look of bafflement that people gave her the first time they discovered that she was high-ranking military.

"I've never heard of Torchwood," Anderson said, continuing to look at her suspiciously.

"You still haven't, Mr. Anderson," Rose said, which was her usual response to that statement. "I can assure you that I have the authority to remove you from this investigation. Are you planning on staying and watching Dr. Harper's autopsy, or would you like to go wait in another room for my team to come and debrief?"

"Oh, I'm staying," he said, folding his arms and adjusting his seat as though he thought she would physically remove him.

"Fine," she said without much interest. She turned to Molly next. "And you, Ms. Hooper? Are you staying or would you like to go?" This was another test for Molly Hooper. If she left, Rose would have her Retconned for simplicity sake rather than having to explain everything that she hadn't seen.

"No, I'll stay," Molly said in a quiet, uncertain voice. She did not meet Rose's eyes, and Rose saw her glance at Sherlock more often than Rose liked, but she chose not to react. It did not matter, and even if it did, there were bigger things to deal with just now than domestics.

"Rose, I could use your hands if you're done playing mummy," Owen called from across the room. Owen had not requested a transfer after Cardiff, and Rose had not raised the subject again, but there was an old proverb about leopards and spots that seemed apt.

Rose rolled her eyes at Mickey who had glanced up from his laptop (where he was hacking into Scotland Yard's records to ready them for alteration once the new memories had been given to Anderson and Lestrade) at Owen's rudeness. She came to the opposite side of the body from the doctor and took the gloves and equipment that he handed her. She was given a stasis gun and a carrying case for the creatures that they would undoubted find as soon as Owen opened the cadaver's chest.

"Need any more hands than just mine?" Rose asked Owen as he lifted the laser saw that would cut through the man's sternum in mere seconds, unlike a standard bone saw.

"How long has it been since infestation?" Owen asked.

"Should have asked that first, Harper," Rose said with irritation. "Three hours at a minimum."

Owen glared at her. "Then they'll have filled most of the chest cavity. We could use another pair or two then. Interested in doing some real work, Smith?" he raised his voice to ask Mickey.

"Major Smith is busy, Harper," Rose said, getting more annoyed with him by the moment. "Sherlock, Molly, come give us a hand."

Owen raised an eyebrow at her choices, but Rose did not need to defend herself to Owen Harper. When Molly and Sherlock arrived, Owen handed them gloves.

"Molly Hooper, this is Dr. Owen Harper. Don't be nice to him, it encourages him," Rose introduced. "Owen, this is Molly. Try to avoid being an ass. Sherlock you've met. Please try to avoid any more temper tantrums."

"Only if you try to avoid snogging him in public," Owen said, turning on the saw.

Rose turned on her stasis gun and asked, "how many times have I caught you and Tosh in the office supply closet at work? Technically I should report both of you to HR for that."

Mickey chuckled from across the room. Owen muttered something (undoubtedly rude) under his breath, but did not dare say anything out loud.

Rose glanced at Sherlock and Molly. Sherlock was glaring at Owen, but Molly was looking wide-eyed between Sherlock and Rose and blushing a bright, unattractive red. It seemed that, despite Rose's assurances that they were in a relationship, Molly was flummoxed by talk of physical intimacy between them. Rose shook her head and began to explain what they would need from the two assistants.

"Owen is going to use the saw to cut through the sternum, then I'm going to need you two to pull the sides of his ribcage aside. If Owen is right, and he usually is about this sort of thing, loath though I am to admit it, the entire chest cavity is going to be full of creatures. Those gloves you're wearing are a special polymer that they can't bite through, but don't let them touch you anywhere else or you'll end up like this poor bloke. I'm going to start firing this thing into the cavity, and I'll need you two to help me and Owen get the stunned ones into this chamber. Clear?"

"Um-" Molly began, in a voice with just the barest squeek of apprehension.

"We're fine," Sherlock cut her off.

Rose ignored Sherlock and looked at Molly. "Are you going to be all right?"

Molly looked at Sherlock again, took a deep breath and nodded. She did not look at Rose.

"All right then, Doctor," Rose said to Owen, "let's get on with it then."

The process was quite as disgusting as Rose had anticipated. Upon opening the chest cavity and finding the writhing mass of grey, Molly had given out a little moan and what color was in her face left it.

"Oi," Rose cried sharply, forcing Molly's gaze to sharpen. "If you're going to pass out or be sick, do it elsewhere. There's no time to coddle you now."

Molly's face took on a flush of anger and embarrassment, but it was better than the grey tinge that it had taken moments before. Rose would accept the girl's anger if it meant she wasn't going to land in a heap on the floor.

After that, there were 20 minutes of silence broken only by the sound of Rose's stasis device. The four around the body heaped the still creatures into the chamber and, when it was finally full, and the body empty, sealed it off.

"Disgusting," Rose said, once everything was finally done. She turned to find Tosh and Jake waiting at the door, Tosh holding a pair of filled coffee-cup holders. "Ah, good to see you two. Fantastic even. Mick and Owen are going to take this lot back as soon as Owen closes the body back up, and you two are just in time for the debrief." Rose turned to Molly then. "Is there a conference room or an office that we could use?"

"Well, there's my office," Molly offered.

"Your office is a bit small, a conference room would be ideal," Rose responded.

"There's one, just down the hall."

"Perfect, if you'd lead Tosh, Jake, Greg and Phillip to that room, Sherlock, Owen and I will finish up here and then Sherlock and I will join you in a moment."

Molly nodded in bewilderment, and Jake picked up Mickey's computer on his way to follow the young woman to the debrief room.

Owen closed up the body and sealed it with another device he had pulled from his bag. The bone, muscle and skin sealed as though they had never been cut.

Sherlock watched the device work. "That's impossible," he said, turning to Rose.

"Not impossible, just early," she answered. One of these days she hoped he'd quit using the term 'impossible,' but she'd never talked the Doctor into it, so probably not. "Okay, Owen, Mick, get these to the lab as quick as possible," she said, handing the stasis chamber over to the men. "I've got to go lie my pretty little arse off for the sake of planetary security." She gave them a grin.

Owen and Mickey moved toward the door but Rose stopped them as they left. "Owen," she called out, causing that man to stop and look back at her. "Thanks for coming out. Couldn't have done it without you."

Owen Harper looked a bit surprised, but he gave her a pleased smile. "Happy to help," he said quietly and he and Mickey left.

Rose led Sherlock down to the conference room. They entered together, but Rose indicated a seat at the end of the table to Sherlock, and took the head of the table herself. Tosh handed each of them the drinks they had ordered. Rose raised a questioning eyebrow at Tosh who nodded. Enough coffee had been consumed that Rose could begin telling the story.

"This morning, your office received a call about a body that had been found with a gunshot wound in the shoulder but no blood and no exit-wound, and no clear cause of death," Rose began. Her voice was calm, steady, and quiet- very nearly hypnotic. Jake sat with the computer out, updating the police's files as Rose spoke.

"Sherlock Holmes was called to the morgue after the initial examinations because there was still no clear cause of death. He arrived with Rose Tyler. Anderson and Sherlock exchanged insults, and Rose told both of them off. Sherlock examined the body and discovered that the man had died of a heart attack caused by the gun's loud discharge. He insulted the entire police force. He looked at the man's wallet and found that all cash and credit cards had been removed. He told you that it had been a mugging and that you had wasted his time. Greg apologized and everyone agreed that it was a peculiar misunderstanding. Greg and Anderson will return to Scotland Yard to complete their paperwork on the case. It will remain open for a few months, but will eventually be forgotten."

As she spoke, Rose watched the dull eyes of Anderson and Lestrade. They never came into focus, remaining largely passive as they continued drinking their coffee in a mechanical way. Molly Hooper, on the other hand had, at several moments, opened her mouth to interrupt, only to be stopped Tosh's silent hand on her shoulder.

Rose finished her story around the time that the two men finished their drinks.

The Detective Inspector's eyes came back into focus first. "Well, that seems to all be in order. Sorry to have bothered you, Sherlock. Won't happen again. Come on, Anderson, let's get back to the station."

Anderson's eyes gained focus as well. "Yes sir," he said to Lestrade. He then turned to Rose. "It was a pleasure to meet you," he said formally, and then, in a conspiratorial tone, "what do you see in the freak?"

Rose's eyes and voice remained cold as she answered. "That is my business and none of yours, Mr. Anderson."

Anderson frowned, but Lestrade was leaving, so he jogged away to catch up. Rose listened until she heard the outside door shut, then she sighed and leaned back in her chair.

"You done, Jake?" Rose asked.

"Oh yeah," he said, snapping the lid of the laptop shut. "Everything in order, boss."

"Fantastic," Rose said with a grin. "All right then, on to more important business. Molly Hooper, I'd like to introduce you to Jake Simmonds, my tech man, and Toshiko Sato, my lab rat. Jake and Tosh, this is Molly Hooper, a friend of Sherlock's."

Jake grinned at Molly. "Charmed," he said genially. "Anyone who can put up with Sherlock must be a saint."

"Except for Rose," Tosh said, with a sideways glance at her CO. "She only manages it because she's almost as bad."

"Ouch," Rose said to her friend with a grin. "I'm wounded, really. All right then, Molly." Rose turned to face the girl in question. "An actual debrief would seem to be in order. Everyone here save for Sherlock works for Torchwood, a non-governmental, paramilitary organization tasked with dealing with alien activity on Earth. Aliens as in little green men though, to be perfectly honest, we don't meet that many green people."

"Blue tends to be a more common color," Tosh observed. "Couldn't exactly tell you why though."

"Owen'd probably have a theory, but he's not here just now," Rose said. "Anyway, little green or blue men. Earth's not actually very interesting to most aliens- we're technologically and psychically under-developed, and the planet isn't overly pretty. Some higher species even consider Earth an un-inhabited planet since humans are a moderate-sentience species at this point in our development. High and extreme-sentience species basically consider us animals, the way we do with dogs." Rose looked up at Molly and saw the look of confusion and shock on her face. "Right," Rose said, "too technical. I should know better than that. How about you ask us what you want to know, and we'll fill in for you where we need?"

Molly looked pale and scared, and it took her a few tries to find her voice. "So those things in that man's body…"

"Venchilion," Sherlock interrupted.

"Shhh," Rose hissed.

"Are they the start of some kind of alien invasion?" Molly continued, as though Sherlock had not spoken.

"No, not at all," Jake said, soothingly. "They're pests. Non-sentient. Venchilion tend to come down with space debris, and occasionally on visiting ships, if they're not well-maintained. It's really that poor bugger's bad luck. They usually burn up in the atmosphere, and if they make it to the surface, they don't handle the oxygen mix in our air very well and usually don't survive more than an hour or two."

"What are you going to do with them? Kill them?" Molly asked.

"We'll take them to the lab and study them," Tosh said. "We'll make sure there aren't any more in the area by checking their oxygen levels, and if there are, we'll go deal with them."

"You talk about sentience… so there are aliens out there… proper aliens? Who talk and walk and communicate with humans?"

"Oh yes," Rose said, quietly. "They walk and talk and make bad jokes about films from the 1980s. Some of them you could talk to for hours and never know that you'd been talking to an alien."

"So… are you lot aliens?"

"Only Rose," Tosh said with a grin.

"Oh for god's sake, Tosh," Rose said with irritation, "don't confuse her. No, I'm not an alien, but I've been working with and living with aliens so long that… certain types of scans show me as non-terrestrial. But I'm human, 100%. Born in the East End of London in 1986."

"That's London the city, not London the planet," Jake said, still poking fun at Rose.

"Yes, because if I were from London the planet, I'd have purple skin and fins," Rose said acidly.

"There's a planet called London?" Molly asked. She seemed, finally, to be getting interested in what was happening, having gotten over the worst of her fright.

"Yeah," Rose answered, cheerfully. "It means something like 'brilliant sky' in the local language. I understand the skies are red." Rose sighed. "I'd love to see it."

"You said you used to live with aliens… did you travel to other planets too?" This was the first time that Molly had shown interest in Rose specifically since learning about her relationship with Sherlock.

"Yeah. Used to have an alien friend who was my designated driver. We traveled everywhere for a couple of years, then I came home to work for Torchwood," Rose said, an abbreviated and misleading account of her life.

"Would you go back if you could?" Molly asked.

Rose looked at the other girl shrewdly. She had an idea of what Molly was really asking with this question. Who knew better than she what it felt like to have the man you had loved from afar choose someone blonde and pretty and rich and well-dressed and accomplished, leaving you behind? But Rose was too selfish to give in to the other woman. She believed that Sherlock was happy with her, and, until she believed differently, she would keep him.

"Really, it depends on who was with me," Rose answered. "The universe is vast and mad and beautiful and dangerous, and I miss the stars every day, but there's a lot of things you need to get across the universe. Warp drive… Wormhole refractors… You know the thing you need most of all? You need a hand to hold."

The two women's eyes met across the table, one set the color of old gold, the other like melted chocolate. Rose's gaze remained cool and steady. Molly's eyes jumped between each of Rose's, as though to catch the meaning in them. Whatever she sought, she seemed, finally, to find and Molly was the first to look away.

Rose gave a heavy sigh of exhaustion. "All right team, technically I'm on medical leave, so I'm going to go now. Molly, Tosh and Jake can answer any other questions that you have and," she reached into her pocket to withdraw a white business card which she slid across the table, "you can call me if you want to talk or ask anything else, or if something you suspect is alien winds up in the morgue again. Would you be willing to give me your number? I could let you know ahead of time if you need to expect something weird."

Molly reached into the pocket of her lab coat for a small spiral notebook and a pen. She wrote her number, tore the sheet out, and handed it to Rose all without saying a word.

"Thanks," Rose said, quietly. "Tosh, Jake, please keep the gossip about me to a minimum, I do still approve your paychecks you know," she said with a cheeky grin. Her team members grinned back.

As she was leaving, Rose turned one last time to look at Molly Hooper. "You were brilliant today, Molly," she said, surprising the other girl into looking at her. "Honestly, thanks." Rose smiled at the look of surprise on Molly's face and left, Sherlock following along behind her.


	4. Sherlock and the Tyler's Meet

**So this is a story that I've been asked for several times. I knew that this collection was going to exist, however, so I kept putting people off who asked for it (sorry about that, by the way).**

**This one is set after both Danger Night and the ficlet Boyfriend, so the Tylers and Sherlock have technically met, but this is that tea that Jackie keeps hinting about!**

**It is also fairly unremittingly fluffy, which I was a bit surprised about so... sorry?**

**Please enjoy!**

* * *

_Picking you up at 6 tomorrow for dinner with my parents. Be ready._

_ }-^-_

_John, Sherlock is having dinner with my family tomorrow, help me be sure he's ready at 6. Thanks._

_ }-^-_

Rose sent the two texts and then waited. She could very nearly set her watch by Sherlock's response. Precisely three minutes later, her phone gave its warble as his answer came in.

_I'm afraid I won't make it. I have plans._

_-SH_

Rose smiled. Four weeks now had passed since the party and the photograph of her kissing Sherlock had made the paper. Four Saturday teas had been offered, and four identical refusals. This week was different- it wasn't an invitation this time, it was an order; Sherlock just didn't know it yet.

She climbed from the cab that was idling two doors down from 221 on Baker Street.

"Thanks," she said, with a winning smile at the cabbie who'd been so patient with her. She tipped him well and set off for the building beside the sandwich shop. After drawing her fingers across the number plate, she knocked, then set the knocker back down angled to the left as Sherlock preferred to keep it.

"Hello Mrs. Hudson," Rose said with a grin when that woman answered the door.

"Hello Rose, dear," Mrs. Hudson said, leaning forward to give her a kiss on the cheek which she accepted. "Here to see Sherlock?"

"If he's in," Rose confirmed, "but I also wanted to ask you for a favor."

"Of course, anything, dear."

"Sherlock is coming to dinner at my parent's house tomorrow. I'm picking him up here at 6."

"Well that's so lovely. You two make such a sweet couple!"

Rose ignored this statement. She'd heard it before and, while she agreed, it didn't make a difference to the current issue.

"Well, the thing is that he hasn't agreed to do it yet. I'm going to go up there and make sure that he does agree, but I'll need yours and John's help to be sure he's ready by the time I get here tomorrow, yeah?"

Mrs. Hudson seemed to understand. "Of course! No worries, John and I will have him dressed and ready to go by six."

"Fantastic," Rose said with a grin. "Now, off to be sure he understands that meeting my mum and dad isn't an option, it's an obligation.

"Good luck, dear," Mrs. Hudson said, as Rose ascended the stairs.

Sherlock was not in the sitting room. Rose crossed into the kitchen, expecting to find him at his microscope, but he was not there either. She glanced down the hallway to his room and saw that the door of the bathroom was closed.

Perfect, she thought, and took a seat in Sherlock's chair, facing the direction from which he would come. She hooked her legs indolently over the arm of the chair and waited for Sherlock to appear. She heard a flush of water from the back room and couldn't help but smile as she imagined the look on his face when he entered the room. She schooled her features back to solemnity, however, when she heard the door of the bathroom open and his steps on the floor of the hall.

Sherlock walked into the room with his carefully constructed mask of omniscience in place. He'd known someone (not John) was in the flat as soon as he had stepped out of the bathroom, had deduced that they were in the sitting room, had checked that his revolver was on his person, and had come to the room intending to face either an enemy or a client. He'd not expected to face his girlfriend lounging in his chair with a look of calm superiority.

"Most people knock," he said.

"Since when am I most people?"

"Why did you text if you were within a 10-minute walk?"

"Prove a point. You're coming to my parents' house tomorrow."

"I am busy."

"Yeah? With what?"

"A... case."

"Yeah? From who? Something I can help with?"

"It's from Mycroft," Sherlock said, knowing that she had Lestrade on speed dial. "And it's very sensitive. Highly classified." As soon as the words were out of his mouth, Sherlock realized his mistake.

"I have clearance, feel free to expand," she said.

She watched him struggle. He knew that she knew that there was nothing- no plans, no case, nothing. She'd given him a length of rope, and he'd hanged himself on it quite effectively.

Rose gave him a few more moments. "Is that the story you're planning on sticking with then?"

Sherlock sighed and dropped himself into John's chair across from her. "Why do I have to go to your parents' house? They've met me on several occasions. I've watched your brother. I've been to parties at their house. Why must we make a production of all of this?"

"Because, Sherlock, that's what people do. Parents meet their children's significant others."

"You've not had to meet my parents."

Rose raised an eyebrow at him. This had been a long-running argument between them. She had asked when she would meet the Holmes family, and he would put her off.

"Does your mother even know that I exist, Sherlock?"

"Undoubtedly Mycroft has informed her."

"And I'm sure he's described me in the most flattering manner possible. You're a right prat, you know that?"

"What did I do now?"

"First things first, you're coming to my parents' house tomorrow. Be certain that you're ready by 6:30. Your usual clothes will be fine, but shave and comb your hair." Sherlock glared at the implication that he would skip either of these things, but Rose ignored it. "Secondly, you should not have left your brother, who doesn't much like your girlfriend tell your mum about her. Now your mum won't like me and that's going to be inconvenient when I finally meet her."

"Why would you have to meet her?"

"You don't think she's going to let you get away with never introducing me to her? Has she asked about me?"

"I don't take her calls."

Rose shook her head. "Never mind, there's no communicating with you, apparently. Are we both clear that you're coming to my parents' place tomorrow? You'll be ready when I arrive at 6:30?"

"Yes. I'll be ready."

Rose nodded. She'd make certain of it through John and Mrs. Hudson, but she probably didn't need to tell Sherlock that.

~?~?~?~?~

Rose pulled up to the Baker Street flat right on time. She parked her little blue import not-quite legally outside of the front of the building and jogged up to the door. It was opened by a giggling Mrs. Hudson before she could knock, behind whom was a smirking John and a glowering Sherlock. Rose raised a questioning eyebrow to Mrs. Hudson and John, both of whom shook their heads. No answers there then.

"Are you ready, Sherlock? You look very nice," she said.

"Yes, let's get away from these giggling apes," Sherlock grated out, pushing past his friend and landlady and snapping the door shut behind him.

"So what was that all about then?" Rose asked.

"I do not wish to discuss it."

Rose climbed into the driver's seat as Sherlock slumped in the passenger seat, a grumpy look on his face.

"You do know that I'll just be more curious if you don't tell me, right?"

Sherlock sighed. "Neither John nor Mrs. Hudson has allowed me to be alone since I woke this morning. Even in the bathroom or my bedroom. They claimed that I might try to get away by escaping through the window. Mrs. Hudson insisted on being the one to watch me while I showered and changed."

Rose giggled at the consternation on Sherlock's face and the thought of the teasing that Mrs. Hudson must have given him.

"They said it was your idea," he accused.

"All I told them was to make sure that you were ready at 6:30. I said nothing about how, and certinally nothing about watching you shower. Must have been a nice show for Mrs. Hudson. Quite the treat that. You're a bit of a celebrity."

"Oh don't start, I've heard it all from John."

Rose laughed. As it always did, the sound of her laughter had the effect of lightening Sherlock's mood. He was still irritated, but he found that he could see the humor in the situation with Rose beside him.

"What should I be expecting from this evening?" Sherlock asked. He'd asked John and Mrs. Hudson several times during the day, but neither of their answers had made much sense to him.

"Playing the part of protective father will be Pete Tyler. He'll ask you what your intentions are toward his only daughter. I suggest saying that you like my company and that we're moving slowly from there. He'll probably also try to figure out what I've told you about Torchwood as he's the director. Tell him the truth, but be careful 'cause he'll try to recruit you as a consultant."

"If I consulted, would I be guaranteed you as my liaison?"

"Might be arranged."

"Better than working for the Yard then..." Sherlock said, contemplatively.

"Acting the part of suspicious mother will be Jackie Tyler. She'll ask you loads of questions that will be just a bit insulting. After her third drink she'll try to hit on you. After her fifth, she'll fall asleep. Should be exciting."

Sherlock merely nodded to this. He'd had an interesting conversation with Jackie Tyler about her concerns for her daughter and his place in her life, but Rose had not been there for that conversation, and he wondered if Jackie would approve his sharing the contents with her daughter.

"Finally, in the part of precocious child and all-around sweetheart will be Tony. He'll want to show you his toys, play games with you, and probably sit next to you at the dinner table. Only agree to what you're comfortable with where he's concerned."

"I think I shall leave seating charts to you and your mother."

"Word of advice: don't say things like that around my mum. She'll get wedding ideas in her head." As she had expected, Sherlock's face blanched at the word "wedding." Though, if she were honest, hers might do the same. It wasn't where they were, and it might never be.

"I shall... endeavor not to say anything untoward," Sherlock said, carefully.

"Don't make promises you can't keep," Rose teased.

~?~?~?~?~

Rose parked in front of the vast house that her mother and Pete lived in. She'd lived there herself for a year or so before moving into the flat down from Mickey's to enjoy some autonomy. Her mother had been far too interested in her romantic life and her "inability to move on from that mad alien with his ears and his suits and his noisy blue box." So Rose had followed the Doctor's example and run away.

As she and Sherlock climbed out of the car, the front door banged open and a red-and-blue blur of towheaded five-year-old bulletted itself toward them. Rose stepped in front of Sherlock to scoop the wriggling bundle of giggling energy up into her arms, flopping him upside down.

"Hello sweeheart," she said to her little brother as he laughed breathlessly from his inverted position with his legs wrapped around her waist.

"Pu'me down so I can walk on my hands, Wose!" he squeeled.

Rose glanced up to see his nanny, Clara, waiting at the door. She grinned at the petite brunette and called, "has he had a bath yet, Clara?"

"No, you're fine, Rose," she called back.

Rose lowered Tony's hands to the ground and held onto his legs, balancing him as he held his weight on his hands and walked them forward.

"Look, Mr. Sherlock! I can walk on my hands!"

"Mmmm, very impressive," Sherlock said vaguely. He was watching the interplay between the two siblings. He wondered if his relationship with Mycroft might have been friendlier if there had been two decades between them rather than not-quite one. He doubted it, somehow. Mycroft would have always been a rubbish big brother, unlike Rose who made an excellent big sister.

"All right my dear," Rose said to Tony, "I'm going to let you down now, okay?"

"Kay."

Rose lowered his legs and helped him stand up. He stumbled around deliberately when the blood rushed from his head, bouncing off of hers and Sherlock's knees. Clara, noticing that her young charge might be making a nuisance of himself came down the steps to join them.

"Clara, this is Sherlock Holmes," Rose said, gesturing from one to the other. "Sherlock, this is Clara Oswald, Tony's nanny. Until she gets her degree and starts teaching, anyway. So how was the little monster today?"

"He was reasonably well-behaved until lunch when he spilled chocolate milk all over Clara resulting in him receiving a time-out. Both of them spent some time with a... Yorkshire Terrier, including brushing it, and spent about 30 minutes outside until it started to rain this afternoon. They've been in the library since," Sherlock rattled off.

Both of the girls turned to look at him. Clara's mouth hung open in shock, but Rose had a single eyebrow raised and a slight smirk.

"It's actually quite rude to answer a question asked of someone else," Rose said, voice tinged with amusement.

"How did you..." Clara began.

"I'm going to be a bit rude and cut you off there," Rose said. "You probably don't want to know. It'll have to do with wrinkles in your clothes and dirt on your shoes and smelling like dust or something."

"The dust is on her cuffs. I don't smell people who aren't under investigation," Sherlock muttered. "Also, Tony is trampling the rosebushes just now, and the Yorkie is out of the house."

"You get the dog," Rose said to Clara, "I'll get Tony."

Clara nodded, knowing how much Rose disliked the Yorkie that carried her name. She jogged after the creature and found that she was being followed by Rose's date. He was quite good looking, Clara thought, and she'd always liked clever men. Maybe, if things ended between him and Rose...

"Was I right?" he said, suddenly.

Clara shook off her musings and started stalking the dog. "Beg pardon?"

"My deductions, was I right?"

"Oh! Well yeah. The milk thing was an accident, he wasn't being naughty, but pretty much everything else was spot-on. He was on his best behavior today, see? That's not to say he can't be a little nightmare, but he didn't want to get in trouble and not be allowed to see Rose when she came. You either, for that matter."

Sherlock nodded gravely. Reward and punishment- he understood the psychology of it, but he'd have assumed that Tony was too young for such delayed gratification.

While Sherlock was lost in these musings, Clara had started whistling for the wayward dog. It seemed to be a well-behaved creature because it came to her whistle and allowed itself to be picked up and carried back within its boundaries. It was slightly rotund and carefully groomed, so it was probably spoiled. He followed Clara carrying the dog up the steps and turned to see Rose and Tony coming right after them.

"Wose-puppy," Tony called out, putting out his arms for Clara to place the little dog into.

"Go take her inside," Clara said gently. "Then we've got to pop you into the bath before dinner. You'll see Rose and Mr. Sherlock as soon as you're done with your bath, all right?"

Tony's lower lip pushed out in an absurd pout. He turned from his nanny to Rose and Sherlock, hoping that one of them might be sympathetic to his plight, but both of them had the sort of smiles that grown-ups got when they thought you were being silly. Tony sighed. Grown-ups never really understood. He followed Clara into the house to put "Wose-puppy" away and go have his bath.

Sherlock turned toward Rose. "The dog is called Rose as well?"

Quietly, she explained. "Before I landed in this universe, Pete and Jackie- the one who got cyberized- didn't have any kids. Instead, they had a Yorkie called Rose. When Mum and I ended up here permanently, Pete had kept the dog and never bothered to change her name. Now she won't answer to anything else. Mum thinks it's hilarious. Tony always differentiates between me and the dog, so she's usually Rose-puppy."

"She's an attractive and well-behaved dog."

"She is."

"You can't stand her."

"I really can't," Rose answered, shooting her cheeky grin at him.

From down the hallway, Jackie Tyler's voice echoed. "Rose, you're here!"

"Of course I'm here, mum," Rose said, patiently. "I'm here every Saturday."

"And you've brought your detective!" Jackie cried, ignoring Rose's sarcasm. "Well, I guess it didn't take over two years for him to sit down to tea like some people I could mention." She shot a meaningful look at Rose with this. "Now come on, we're having drinks in the parlour." With that, she led the couple down the hall to the airy sitting room.

There was a large tea tray as well as a selection of liquor and wine. Pete was manning the bar options, while Jackie poured tea. Rose demurred at Pete's offer, and took her teacup from her mother. Jackie had a glass of wine as well as her cup of tea on the table beside her chair. Sherlock accepted the glass of high-quality scotch from Rose's stepfather and sat down on the sofa beside Rose, keeping a respectful distance between her and him.

Pete sat in a chair opposite Rose and winked at her. "So Sherlock Holmes," he began, "what would you say your intentions toward my daughter are?"

Rose snorted into her tea, but Sherlock did not find the situation terribly funny at all. He tried to remember what Rose had told him in the car. "We're... taking it slow?" He answered in the form of a question, and he was sure he shouldn't do that.

Pete and Rose both dissolved into silent giggles, but Jackie was intrigued. "What do you mean by that, 'taking it slow'?" she asked, shifting forward in her seat.

Sherlock glanced over at Rose, but she was still consumed in giggles and would be of no help to him. "I... um... We're..."

"Are you two shagging then?" Jackie asked.

"Mother!" Rose cried, continuing to shake with laughter. "Not an appropriate topic for over the teapot, is it?"

"Just 'cause we're English don't mean we have to restrict our conversation to the weather and the state of the roads, now does it? And this topic interests me more than either of those."

"No, mum, we're not shagging," Rose said exasperatedly.

"Well why not?" Jackie asked, which caused both Pete and Rose to start laughing again. Jackie turned to Sherlock with an eyebrow raised.

Sherlock opened his mouth, honestly not certain how to answer the question when Rose grabbed his arm. She stopped laughing long enough to say "don't you dare answer that question, she's just winding you up," before dissolving into laughter again.

Sherlock was almost pathetically grateful when Clara and Tony entered the room.

"Hello my darling," Jackie cried as Rose and Pete quieted their laughter.

Little Tony ran across the room to insinuate himself into his mother's lap.

"Have you had your bath?" she asked him, though Sherlock could see clearly that he had.

"Yes, Mummy," the little boy chanted.

"And have you finished your homework for school on Monday?"

"No Mummy, but we got the maths done, so Ms. Clara said that we could leave the reading until tomorrow because we have guests tonight."

"Well that's all right then," Jackie said, kissing the top of her son's head. "Have you said hello to Rose and Mr. Sherlock?"

"Yes. I saw them outside and Wose helped me walk on my hands and then Wose-puppy got out and Mr. Sherlock and Clara chased her down. Then I had my bath."

"You fail to mention that you nearly trampled your mother's roses," Sherlock added to the child.

"Did not," he said, lower lip protruding as he turned to face Sherlock.

"Did so," Rose said, catching his attention.

"Nuh-uh," Tony said.

"Uh-huh," Rose responded and stuck her tongue out at him.

Tony responded in kind.

"Children," Pete scolded, gently. "If you two can't act properly, I will send you both to your rooms." Rose grinned at the idea, but little Tony immediately sobered.

"Mummy, Daddy, may I show Mr. Sherlock my toys please?" he asked in an exaggeratedly polite way.

"If Mr. Sherlock would like to see them, then you may show them to him, but you'll have to ask," Jackie answered her son.

Tony slithered down from his mother's lap and walked over to Sherlock. He offered his small hand to the older man in a way that reminded Sherlock of Rose wriggling her fingers at him before she ran with him into or out of madness. He had a hard time suppressing a grin as Tony asked, "would you like to see my toys, Mr. Sherlock?"

He looked around the room, at Jackie who might continue to question him about his nonexistant sex-life with her daughter. At Pete who was more than willing to watch him squirm for amusement and at Rose whose idea this whole thing had been in the first place.

This last gave him her fantastic grin that had her tongue caught in her teeth and her eyes sparkling gold at him. She winked, and he knew it was all right to abandon the field for a time.

"Yes, Tony, I would very much like to see your toys," Sherlock said. As Tony led him out of the room, he looked back and winked back at Rose, which made her smile once more.


End file.
